


The Corduroy Prince and the Nighttime Child

by RedChucks



Series: Children's Boosh Stories [2]
Category: The Mighty Boosh (TV)
Genre: Gen, children's story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-15
Updated: 2019-06-15
Packaged: 2020-05-12 08:10:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19225150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedChucks/pseuds/RedChucks
Summary: A Booshy children's story I wrote for my children. I never posted it here and thought I'd share it as it's one of my favourites.





	The Corduroy Prince and the Nighttime Child

Once upon a time, in a far away land, a place you won’t find on a map, there lived the Corduroy Prince. He was only a small prince but the tower that was his home was very tall and the jungle that surrounded it was very deep and very dark. And the Corduroy Prince was on his own. 

Which was perfectly fine during the day. The prince liked being on his own during the day when there were books to read and toys to play with and things to build and games to imagine in his head, but when the sun went down, beyond the mountains, and the moon rose up and the stars began to wink and sparkle, the prince felt that he was alone, rather than on his own. And the Corduroy Prince felt lonely.

He loved to look at the stars and would have liked them better if he could have watched them with another person, but as far as the Corduroy Prince could remember, there had never been another person in the tall tower in the centre of the dark jungle. Until quite unexpectedly, one night...

The Corduroy Prince was gazing out over the dark, but not sleeping, jungle when an eye caught his eye. It was large and the iris was the blue of the midday sky at its very edges when there was heat in the air and the world looked wide and unending. And the eye was watching him.

The Corduroy Prince leapt back from his balcony in fright but the owner of the eye was startled too and fell from their perch in the branches of the banbambo tree with a crash and a yelp. The prince crept back out to the railing to see what had happened to the owner of the blue eye, because the yelp had sounded small and painful and young and he didn’t like the thought of someone hurting themself on his account.

And when he looked down to the jungle floor so far below he saw that the someone, whoever they were, had in fact two shining blue eyes and they were gazing up at him in a way that made the Corduroy Prince feel strange and fluttery in his tummy. And then the someone waved at him, and the prince waved back, but he wasn’t sure if they saw it or not because the owner of the eyes had disappeared back into the jungle like they were made of the nighttime itself.

The next day the Corduroy Prince tried to read his books and play his games but he couldn’t stop thinking about the someone he had seen the night before and when the sun sank down and the moon rose up again he returned to his balcony, searching. And this time, when he noticed the eye, he didn’t take fright, or jump, or yell. He waved. And in the dark it seemed that the someone waved back.

The Corduroy Prince had never met a someone before and he didn’t know how to ask them to come closer. He didn’t want to scare them. But then the large leaves began to flap and slap as the someone climbed nimbly up and through and over and around until they were close enough to the tower that the prince thought he might be able to reach out and touch the blue eyed someone. But before he could, the owner of the eyes jumped.

The prince had not had reason to jump very often in his life. He did occasionally jump on his bed, and sometimes he jumped to reach books from the highest shelf, but he had never jumped like the blue eyed someone jumped toward him now. They jumped out into the empty air, their body stretching like it knew it would reach its destination, even though to the prince it seemed far more likely that they would fall to the ground, much further than the night before. But the someone jumped all the same, stretching out their hands until they caught the rail on the balcony, swinging themselves up until they were perched , like a monkey or a parrot or a puma, watching the prince with their two blue eyes.

On closer inspection the Corduroy Prince could see that the someone was around about his size and shape, if a little smaller and stranger, and so he stepped forward and held out his hand in welcome to the visitor. 

“How do you do?” he asked, and the someone blinked, but then took his hand and stepped down from the railing to stand with their chest touching his. 

“I do not know how,” it said softly. “I simply do.” And the Corduroy Prince blinked twice before smiling wide.

He turned to go inside but the someone had not let go of his hand and they did not move when he did, causing the prince to stumble and swing back around to face his visitor in confusion. 

“Don’t you want to come inside?” he asked. 

“I’ve never been,” the someone replied and the prince looked out at the wide and wild jungle and then back at the two large eyes as they stared at him. 

“You’ve never been under a roof?” he asked. 

“I’ve been under stars,” said the visitor, and the Corduroy Prince smiled again. 

“I like the stars,” he said.

So they sat on the balcony and watched the stars and the someone told stories of peacocks and jaguars and monkeys and creatures that didn’t have names but were part of the jungle all the same, and the way it felt to run through wet trees when the ground was so hot the steam rose in waves that fluttered the flowers. All in a voice that was a bit like singing and the Corduroy Prince listened and didn’t feel alone.

When the prince awoke the next morning the someone was gone and he did not remember having fallen asleep but he felt happy too and read his books and played and imagined and thought of all of the things he could tell the someone if they ever came back. And when the sun began to set he pulled the blankets and pillows from the bed and dragged them outside to the balcony. Just in case.

The sun faded away and the moon appeared and soon there was a rustle among the large, flat leaves and the someone was once again balanced on the rail. They still reminded the prince of a parrot, or possibly an owl, or a hawk, or more likely a bird he had never read of in his books, because the visitor was quite unlike most everything the prince had seen in pictures.

Again they took hands and, “How do you do?” said the prince. 

“I don’t know. I can teach you,” the someone replied but the prince didn’t want to leave the tower and the someone didn’t want to go inside, so they settled themselves down in the nest of blankets and pillows and the Corduroy Prince told stories of oceans and deserts and ice bergs and cities and travelers whilst they watched the stars and the someone listened and held the prince’s hand. 

And the someone asked him if there was a word for the feeling one felt when one wasn’t alone anymore. The Corduroy Prince wasn’t sure.  
“Happy? Home? Together?” None of those words seemed right until... “Found,” he whispered. 

“Found,” the someone sang in answer, squeezing the Corduroy Prince’s hand and pressing their pointed face to his shoulder. “Found.”

That morning, when the prince woke up, the someone was still there, and it was strange to look at them in the daylight, but wonderful too. They were so very small and their hair was like the nighttime jungle and their eyes were even more brightly blue in the sunshine. The prince felt a bit big and a bit brown by comparison but the someone looked at him and smiled like he was someone very special and the Corduroy Prince smiled too. 

The someone did not want to stay in the tower, they needed to move, to run and jump and chase and be chased in the jungle below, and the Corduroy Prince didn’t mind. He wanted to read and imagine and build and sit inside and think and be still. So he hugged the small, strange someone, who hugged him back very tightly indeed, and wished him good day with a smile. 

But when the moon rose after another day, and the stars began to wink and sparkle, the someone was back. 

And when the Corduroy Prince walked to the rail and held out his hand and said, “How do you do?” the someone said, “Found.” And held his hand tight and pressed their chest to the prince’s and smiled. And they were, and he was.

And so the night passed, and every night after, with stories and sleeping and hands held in hands, underneath stars in a tower in a jungle in a far away land - a place you won’t find on a map.


End file.
